So, tonight Apple did their big reveal of their new product line. In this big reveal were the much-spoiled iPhone 8 and iPhone X (geez, thanks leakers) along with the new Apple Watch 3 and the brand-new Apple TV. I already spoke about the rumours that surrounded what we could expect, so now that we know what we are going to get, are the new devices worth the price tags? Let’s see, shall we?
Upgraded Apple TV
Not going to lie, I like Apple TV. Won’t even pretend otherwise. That said, I never upgraded from the old version to the fancier new version with the Siri remote and downloadable apps for one reason above all else: it was only HD. So, with the new Apple TV, what happened?
Don’t think it’ll shock anyone to find that Apple have in fact announced that the new Apple TV is going to have 4K output. This is good news. This is the device I personally have been waiting for. I still think they dropped the ball on the previous version. When that first came out 4K devices were still new and exciting, and Apple could have been amongst the first to the market with a proper 4K streaming device. They could have generated a lot of buzz and a lot of interest, and instead they went with the old reliable HD device. Can’t really say that I blame them overly much, after all 4K TVs are still more of a novelty now than the actual standard, and while TV companies are (very slowly) beginning to embrace the new super-high-quality standard, it’s far from the norm. I doubt it will be for a while yet either. That said, if you had the choice of spending out money on a new device for all your streaming needs, a device that makes your TV experience that much more enjoyable and even allows you to view the content of your iOS devices straight onto your TV, why WOULDN’T you want a 4K option?
Well, Apple have provided it and, quite honestly, this device is on my shopping list. It was the only major improvement that I WANTED in Apple TV, and they gave it to me. Thank you, Apple. But then they delivered something a bit more too, which I’m happy to applaud. They delivered 4K quality from their store, but more importantly they’re also allowing free upgrades from HD to 4K on already-bought materials? Is that right? That is really quite cool. From my point of view it gives me a reason to go back to Apple again for my movie and TV show content (assuming they don’t price themselves out of the market there). That said, to be honest there isn’t a lot of competition. Yes, Amazon offer you the option of digital purchases, but I’ve only taken them up on that once, for an old film where buying it was barely more than renting it, and me and my friend really wanted to watch it. In the UK, the “Sky Store” from Sky gives you the option of buying the HD digital version and them sending you a DVD in the post, which I still believe is the STUPIDEST thing available right now given the fact that I don’t have any use for the DVD, and I’d rather spend the same amount of money on the Blu-Ray. But now that Apple are offering 4K downloads for the same price as HD, suddenly they seem like they’ve positioned themselves to be providing both my music and my movies in the near future (although in truth I’ll probably still buy most stuff on Blu-Ray. What? I like owning the boxes with the pretty pictures. It makes me feel warm and fuzzy inside).
Apple Watch 3
Another announcement, before we get to what everyone was really interested in, is the Apple Watch 3. And, as a big supporter of the Apple Watch 2, will I be rushing out to purchase the upgraded Apple Watch?
Short answer: no. Long answer… probably still no, if I’m honest. I do like the fact that the Apple Watch 3 now no longer requires the owning of an iPhone to function. I think this is a smart move from Apple mostly because it opens the potential market base beyond iPhone users, and realistically speaking nobody was ever going to say “well, I really want an Apple Watch, so I’ll need to buy an iPhone”. That said, to those of us who’ve already bought the Apple Watch, does this version without the need for an iPhone really offer you anything new? I wear my watch every day. It’s part of the reason that I’ve gotten fit this year and lost a ton of weight. It motivates me to meet my stand goal, to get more active, and generally to be fitter than I’ve ever been before in my life. For that, I’d say the Apple Watch was one of the best purchases I’ve ever made. That said, I don’t really see the point in the upgrade just for it to do pretty much everything it does with my iPhone but without. If they’d announced “oh, by the way, the battery now lasts a week” this blog would have its primary focus not on the two new iPhone models but on singing the praises of a smart-watch that finally has a good battery life. But, you know, it doesn’t, so…
Yes, it’s quite cool that you can take calls, send messages and generally do everything else you could already do on the Apple Watch now without your phone being nearby. It’s also quite cool that you can use your watch as a replacement for your phone, even getting 3G/4G cellular coverage on it. It’s even quite cool that Siri talks now, rather than just putting stuff on the screen. However, unless EE want to give me the most incredible deal ever to buy one, I really can’t see myself getting one. These upgrades are reasonably cool, and if YOUR big problem with the Apple Watch was that you needed an iPhone nearby to get the most out of it then good news, you don’t anymore. But that isn’t a problem for me. I’m rarely without my phone, and even when I am, chances are I’m not so desperate to send or receive a text message during that period that I can’t just wait until I’m reunited with my phone. So yeah, this news is quite cool, but it’s not mind-blowing. It’s a progression of the watch, which is cool, but personally I’ll be saving my money and sticking with the Apple Watch 2. And, quite frankly, if the Apple Watch 2 comes down in price (and you’re an iPhone user) then I’d absolutely recommend one to anyone. Did I mention it’s helped me get fit this year?
iPhone 8: What’s New?
Tim Cook has told us that the new iPhone 8 is a “huge step forward”. That’s cool, but honestly Tim, you say the same thing every year. I’m sorry, I love you, I especially love that you’re an openly gay CEO and there aren’t anywhere near enough of those… but you need to learn new ways to hype things.
So, what’s new with the iPhone 8? Before we answer that, let me ask a question: what happened to the iPhone 7S? Am I the only one right now who’s kind of missing that numbering system? Maybe that’s because my first iPhone was the iPhone 3GS, and my second iPhone was the iPhone 4S, and my third iPhone was the iPhone 5S (although my fourth iPhone was the iPhone 6, so… yeah, I broke my pattern), but I did like the whole “S” upgrade after 12-months thing before. Now they’ve skipped from the iPhone 7 to the iPhone 8, leaving me to wonder if next year they’re going to jump up another “full version” or if they’re going to go back to the iPhone 8S format, thus forever leaving the poor iPhone 7 as the only phone without a cooler, one-year-younger brother who does all the stuff his older brother can do but more besides. Then again, if they don’t reintroduce the S models will that mean that the iPhone 6S becomes the weird phone we all look back at in the future and laugh at? “Hey, remember when they did that whole ‘S’ thing after a year? Wasn’t that weird?” And then the teenagers of then will look at us and act like we’ve said something in an alien dialect because they have no idea was an iPhone 6S even was.
Back onto the main story here however, and the iPhone 8 is confirmed as the next iPhone upgrade and… there’s nothing in here that surprises me. I mean, I know we’ve had both the early predictions/rumours to work with AND the massive leak that confirmed most of those rumours to be true, but still it’s still a tad upsetting that the iPhone 8 doesn’t have anything that blows me away. What does the iPhone 8 have? It’s made of “the most durable glass ever in a smartphone” (admit it, you just read that like Tim Cook saying it, didn’t you?), it’s water and dust resistant, it’s got slightly better speakers than the iPhone 7, it’s got a better camera than the iPhone 7 (including 60fps 4K video), and its cameras have augmented reality, which is the first thing about the new iPhone which has piqued my interest. The augmented reality stuff does look very cool. I give full credit for that. The issue I have is wondering how much it’ll be supported. If you could watch football games and bring up the players’ names on your phone as you film them then that would be amazingly cool, but it’ll likely only work for the biggest leagues and the biggest players in those leagues. That’s where the whole thing falls down in my opinion.
The other thing that piques my interest about the iPhone 8, and most likely the only major reason I’ll look for the upgrade cost on my current contract, is wireless charging. I recall in my previous blog about the iPhone upgrade rumours talking about wireless charging and how long I’ve wanted that feature. Yes, it’ll mean investing in the charging ports, but quite honestly, I think they’ll be a worthwhile investment in terms of the ease that the wireless charging will provide. It’s not a game-changing upgrade by any stretch of the imagination, and if you’re going to argue that it’s not exactly a huge hassle to just plug the charging cable in I’ll completely agree with you, because you’d be right. It’s not a huge hassle. But then I didn’t invest in the first iPhone with Touch ID because tapping in my PIN was a huge hassle. I did it because I loved the idea of Touch ID and wanted to use it. Now I truly can’t imagine an iPhone WITHOUT Touch ID in it. I can already imagine the wireless charging being much the same. It’s not a game-changer, but it is something that’s very cool and a feature that personally I want in a phone. But it’s not a feature I’m willing to pay a fortune for. So now that Apple have confirmed it and I’ve gone “ooh”, now it’s down to my service provider to tell me how much I’ll need to pay for this feature.
iPhone 8: Worth the Upgrade?
Now we know the upgrades the big question becomes is it worth making the upgrade from the iPhone 7 to the iPhone 8, and will I be trying to get myself into the queue nice and early on launch day to get one?
Still not an Apple fan-girl, by the way, but I won’t lie: I’ve done the whole “sit at my PC waiting desperately for my spot in the queue to buy my new iPhone” bit before. It was a fun experience. I regret nothing. Once I got the phone (I was not amongst the first to get hers) I was amazingly happy with it, and completely forgave the ridiculously long delay in getting it (and the fact that the store wouldn’t release it without photo ID, so I had to pick it up in person rather than sending someone to get it for me while at work). However… I won’t be going for a repeat performance for the iPhone 8. It’ll ultimately depend on the costs involved in my annual upgrade on my existing contract and whether I think the upgrade cost is worth the novelty of having the new iPhone, but I’m not blown away by the enhancements this year. Augmented reality is very cool, but it’s not a “must have” and until I know it works on things I like then it’s not even something I’ll be looking to try out, let alone invest in. The wireless charging is the biggest thing for me. I’ve wanted wireless charging for a while, and the new phone has it.
The best thing about the wireless charging however seems to be that the wireless charging uses the universal standard. Apple haven’t just announced wireless charging and then told us that they’ve developed a new Apple version of wireless charging that only their devices will ever use. I have at least one friend who I think will smile at that concept, given how one of his biggest peeves with Apple is their insistence on making up their own standards for things that no other company besides Apple adopt as the standard. This does mean that wireless charging units from other companies are going to work for the iPhone, which is great news. Once again, however, it’ll all come down to the cost of those as well, which I’ll factor into the cost of the overall upgrade to decide if I’m going to upgrade or not. Frankly, overall, I think it probably IS worth the upgrade, but it’s not worth shelling out the money for a new phone unless an upgrade is an option to you. If I had a choice between “stick with what I’ve got” and “spend £799 on a phone” then I’m going to choose to stick. If EE tell me “upgrade for £20” then I’m going to twist. We’ll see when the actual costs come out what I end up doing.
iPhone X: What’s New?
But when it comes to iPhone news, we don’t just stop at the iPhone 8. Oh no, we’ve got special exciting news, because Apple are releasing a premium device as well, the iPhone X. What’s the difference?
More than just an excuse to release a more expensive phone, THIS is the phone that’s going to have all the newest features, it would appear. The iPhone 8 really does feel, in comparison, like the iPhone 7S but with a whole-numbered name. Apple saved all the true new stuff for their iPhone X model, which they’re calling the iPhone 10, leading to the first and most obvious question when it comes to this phone: why do tech companies hate the number nine? Seriously, Windows 8 to Windows 10, and now the iPhone 8 and the iPhone “10” being announced at the same time? The official reason seems to be “it’s the 10-year anniversary” but I think the truth is that the number nine did something to someone in California to deeply upset them and the other numbers rallied major technology companies to slowly work it out of existence. Those teenagers from earlier who look at us funny when we talk about the iPhone 6S will also wonder why it takes us a whole second longer than them to count to 10. It’ll be a hard task to completely phase out the number 9, and anyone who owns an analogue clock is going to need to buy a new one, but we’ll get there in the end, I’m sure.
Weird quirks in numbering aside, and the iPhone X does have a lot of new features. It’s clearly Apple’s big statement to the world. It’s the device that they’ve spent most of their effort on. And it shows. Let’s begin with the fact that it’s all glass. Let’s move from there to the fact that the front screen, as rumoured, is edge-to-edge. What you get straight away is a phone that’s no longer the “traditional” iPhone. They’ve changed up the design enough that this phone no longer looks like their iconic iPhone design. Instead it’s exactly as the rumours predicted, with an edge to edge display save for the little dip in the middle at the top where they house the cameras and sensors, and most importantly it’s done away with the section down the bottom where in previous models they housed the home button and then the taptic-“button”. This seems to be the way the world is moving with the newer model phones, with one particular advert in-part responsible for my hatred of the whole edge-to-edge design of phones just due to being on my TV so much that it’s annoyed me enough to dislike the very phone it’s advertising. I don’t dislike the design of this phone, however. I’m not overwhelmed by it either, but I don’t hate it. Yet it’s not just the look of the phone they’re changing.
The biggest thing Apple are rolling out for the iPhone X is the new “Face ID”, which I think does in fact spell the end for my beloved Touch ID. Can we not have both, Apple? It was the Face ID that they focused so much time on to show off, and to their credit their demonstration of it did seem like it addressed many of my concerns. It “learns your face” as it changes, so presumably if you lose weight over time it’ll learn that you’ve got slimmer and thus it won’t refuse to unlock one day if you get a certain percentage of variation from your old appearance. It also addresses the biggest problems I have with the Windows 10 facial recognition I’ve seen, namely if you’re wearing glasses or a hat it’s still smart enough to figure out you’re just you but in glasses or a hat and unlock accordingly. And it works in the dark, which was my other major concern, as I would seriously hate to have to turn the lights on late at night just to unlock my phone. So yes, Face ID doesn’t seem as bad as it seemed as a concept, however in truth I’m still wishing that we could combine Face ID and Touch ID. With Touch ID you had an option of simply not using it. You didn’t need to set up Touch ID on your phone, you could stick with the old “tap in your passcode” method. It seems like Apple aren’t giving us the Touch ID/Face ID side by side option, so you either need to go back to having to tap in your password OR you have Face ID? I assume you can just choose not to enable it anyway.
Other than that, they’ve also announced that they’ll be producing a charging mat which simultaneously can charge your Apple Watch, iPhone X and AirPod headphones, which I suppose is quite cool. And that the battery on the iPhone X will last two hours longer than the iPhone 7 (although I’ve never been too disappointed with the battery life on the iPhone 7, so I’m not sure how much “2 hours” relates to in terms of my level of usage). The iPhone X will also bring to life animated emoji’s which respond to your facial movements to create. That’s… a bit quirky. I feel like they threw that in as a very weird gimmick. Could they not have spent their time adding something new, rather than finding a really odd way to make roleplaying as an animated poop an actual thing you can do with your time? I mean, I waste my spare time doing some weird stuff, but I’m not sure anyone has enough spare time for that, do they? Oh, and last but not least, of course Face ID now works with Apple Pay, so you can now pay using your face… which actually does make sense, and isn’t a very weird insult, as it seems when I read that back.
iPhone X: Worth the Upgrade?
This is the only question worth asking when it comes to the iPhone X, right? Is it worth the incredibly impressive $1000 price tag? Worse still, with the exchange rate still not being close to $1 to £1, is it worth the even more impressive £1000 (or $1,328.51 as of writing, according to XE.com) price tag?
I can’t believe I’m saying this but… no, it’s not worth the money. Sorry Apple, I wanted to be impressed, I wanted to be overwhelmed by how cool this phone was, but… I’m just not. Yes, it’s a nice phone. But no, it’s not so much better than everything else on the market that it deserves to be that expensive. However, that said, I’ve discussed previously the fact that a $1000 phone doesn’t ACTUALLY mean shelling over one-thousand of your precious dollars in one hit. With the options to split the cost over the length of a contract being available from all carriers, and of course the yearly upgrade options added last year to almost all iPhone contracts (at least in the UK), then the cost of this phone is actually more reasonable in reality, but there’s no doubt that it’s the headline grabbing £1000 phone tag that people will be talking about. And with good reason, because I can outright say right now that as cool of a gimmick as some of this tech is… it’s not worth THAT amount of money.
That is, ultimately, how I see the new iPhone X. It’s a cool gimmick. It’s got some fun features that may be enjoyable. It’s far from a “must have”, however, and Apple themselves do other products I’d rather spend my money on than the new iPhone X. I’ll level with you right now, I may end up owning one but that will depend entirely on the EE upgrade offers (if they even do upgrade offers for the iPhone 7 to the iPhone X) and if THOSE offers are more mind-blowing than the actual phone itself. Honestly though, I’m disappointed that it doesn’t seem like Touch ID and Face ID can be used side by side. I’m relieved that they put more thought into Face ID than Windows 10 offers with the “unlock using your face” feature, but that doesn’t overcome that initial disappointment. I’m also happy that Face ID will process on the phone itself, the same way Touch ID does, so that this data isn’t stored in the cloud. However, the negative side of that is that if they go this route with other devices – say, for example, that they release a Mac and an iPad with the same Face ID features – that that’ll mean each device will have to “learn” you independently, which could mean that you could unlock your Mac and your iPhone one day but your iPad will refuse to unlock because you’ve got a bump on your forehead that your iPhone and Mac are ok with but your iPad particularly dislikes.
Overall First Thoughts
Maybe I’ll change my mind when I’ve seen more reviews and more videos of the phones in action. I have no doubt this will be far from the last blog I write about the new iPhones (especially if I do end up changing my mind and/or upgrading to one of them, or I have more conversations about them. Which reminds me: I really do want to thank all of you who’ve chatted with me about the iPhone article I did before. I’ve had so much fun discussing it with you). However, right now my first thoughts on the iPhone 8 is that it’s quite cool but it’ll have to be a cheap upgrade as there’s not much in there that’s worthy of getting too excited over, and the iPhone X is a cool gimmick device that I’m not even sure I’m completely happy with as a gimmick device, let alone am overwhelmed with as a replacement for my phone. Apple will still secure some of my future money on the new 4K Apple TV, but that was going to happen as soon as that announcement was confirmed. As for the rest… this is yet another time I’m disappointed by you, Apple.
I remember a few years back when you showed off the new iMacs with 5K display. I bought one, in part because my MacBook had made me fall in love with Mac OS in general, but more importantly because the 5K display is FREAKING AMAZING, had has genuinely changed the way I use my home computer. I could never go back to anything other than this incredible display. I also remember previous iPhone announcements that I went in slightly pessimistic and left going “I. Must. Have. That. Phone”. Hell, my friends will probably even tell you about the time I scoffed at the Apple Watch, and then watched the announcement and immediately wanted one when it was over. The last few major Apple releases though – the MacBook without USB ports, the MacBook with the weird touch bar, and now the iPhones which are underwhelming – have officially dismissed me from potentially ending up in the Apple fan-girl club, because now I keep refusing the upgrade options because they don’t seem like actual improvements. But we’ll see when I get to touch one and play with one or see videos of them in action, I suppose. And it’ll depend massively on EE and what they want to offer in terms of upgrades.
Oh, and no AirBuds! I was really, really hoping they’d go “surprise, we’ve done in-ear AirPods, because our in-ear ones are much nicer than the standard ones” but apparently not. I’d definitely have bought them as well. At least my “ooh, ooh, Lexy wants that” list is limited to just the new Apple TV, I guess. So that’s one good thing to sign off on…